


The First Fight

by freezerjerky



Series: The Passage of Time [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:18:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezerjerky/pseuds/freezerjerky
Summary: Merlin starts to worry about their first big fight. When he meets someone who's very important to Arthur, the inevitable happens.





	1. Chapter 1

Once Merlin and Arthur properly settled into the bliss of a committed relationship, Merlin starts to worry about when their first real fight will take place. They've had their squabbles since the beginning, and the tension over Arthur's fight with Will was definitely an issue but a short lived one. Merlin doesn't necessarily think a fight will ruin their relationship, but it seems inevitable. They're two different people with different life experiences, after all and there's a lot of adjusting happening in both of their lives.

In late May, their friends go out to celebrate Gwaine's new job as a bartender by dancing at a club. Most everyone's a bit more drunk than usual and Gwaine is a bit too revealing with his talk. He lets it slip in conversation that when Merlin first moved into his current flat the two of them spent a weekend "shagging each other's brains out" but afterwards he'd play Merlin's wingman at pubs. Merlin looks at Arthur during the whole story and waits for a reaction. 

That night they have an enthusiastic, albeit possessive, shag behind the club and then go home as usual. In the morning, Merlin explains to Arthur that it really was just sex and that he couldn't imagine seeing Gwaine in that way. Arthur believes him and Merlin starts to believe that maybe they won't have a real fight any time soon. 

 

Merlin's just gotten off of his lunch break on a Tuesday early in June when he's approached by a visitor to the gallery. She's a striking woman in a pencil skirt and very high heels. There's something familiar about her, like he's seen her in photographs, but he can't exactly place it.

"I was hoping you could tell me a bit about that painting over there," she begins, pointing at a nude, one of Merlin's personal favourites in the gallery. "I'm interested in purchasing it."

He gives her a warm smile and walks her over to the painting, introducing the artist and any backstory he knows. They devolve into talking about art theory and while the stranger is not an artist herself, she seems to know art very well. Most people who come into the gallery either look for a few minutes and step outside or purchase something based solely on colour palette. She seems to have a good eye and agrees to buy the painting.

"I'll have to get my supervisor to sell a painting of that price range, so if you'd excuse me Miss-"

"Pendragon."

"You're Morgana." He stops in his tracks. He has in fact seen pictures of her, mostly as a teenager or younger. She looks about the same when he actually looks at her. "Arthur's sister, right?"

"Half sister, yes," she corrects with a smile. "You must be the personal assistant who ran off to work at a gallery, he was not very pleased with that, I can tell you that much."

They laugh together at that. Merlin's heard a lot about Morgana in passing and he knows that, despite the teasing, Arthur and his sister are close.

"Well, I think we both agree now that my skills are better suited for this than for helping him manage his life."

"Yes, his new assistant, the little curly haired one? He's adorable."

"Mordred." He grins. "He'd be mortified to know that you think that."

"Then it'll be our secret." She winks at him. "Speaking of secrets, maybe you could help me with something."

"Of course, anything."

"Well, I was wondering if you knew if Arthur has been seeing anybody? I've got a friend who, despite me telling her how gross he is, is still very interested, but every time I've plied for the past week or so he's insisted that he's not interested in dating right now, but he's also been suspiciously busy at night."

Merlin feels his cheeks go red with embarrassment and stamped down anger. Arthur's sister doesn't know about him.

"You're going to have to ask him yourself," he answers curtly. "I'll go get my supervisor about that painting."

"Oh- of course." Morgana takes a step back and waits to complete her purchase. She's driving off in the back of a cab with her new purchase minutes later.

 

After work, he goes directly to Arthur's flat. They've arranged to cook dinner together that night and then watch a movie or two before likely falling asleep on the couch. The words "suspiciously busy" keep playing in the back of Merlin's mind, but he's not going to confront Arthur until after dinner. Maybe it's nothing to confront him about after all, and he's been angry for no reason. When they're settled on the couch, though, Merlin has to ask.

"Are you out to your family?" he starts, because that's really the first question.

"Y-yes," Arthur answers, because the question seems to be coming out of nowhere. "Yeah, my dad believes it's sort of a phase but Morgana's sort of the same as me in that regard, so we bonded over it."

That's one point against Arthur, then. He wasn't concealing because he couldn't admit he was dating a man.

"Morgana. Right." He pauses. "I met her today."

"She came in to look at the art, I'm assuming?" Arthur's definitely a bit more tense than he was just a few moments prior.

"Yeah, of course. Your art collector sister came to look at the art."

"Half-sister."

"She seems to be under the impression that you're single."

"It doesn't really come up in conversations," Arthur says, trying to choose his words carefully. Normally it wouldn't, and that's the truth.

"Except she's been asking you if you want to see a friend of hers and you've told her that you're not interested in dating for the past few weeks."

"Look Merlin, it's not like-"

Merlin moves away from Arthur on the couch and switches off the television before turning to him.

"Not like what? You're not even telling her you're seeing someone. Anyone."

"It's complicated in my family, Merlin. You've met my father, you know how intense everything can be. There's a lot of expectations and you're not exactly what my family expects from me."

"I'm what now?" He's standing a second later. "So it's deliberate. I'm a big secret for them."

"I wouldn't say a secret, but I've got to be cautious about this, you know I do."

"You don't get to tell someone you want to commit to them and then not tell them that you're keeping them as a big secret to the people closest to you."

Arthur hangs his head a bit. "Admittedly, that's not exactly the most respectful move, I'll acknowledge that."

"When would you have told her?" he demands. "Next month? Next year?"

"When it seemed absolutely pivotal to tell her," Arthur admits. 

"So when it's no longer convenient to hide me," he amends. "When I'm moved in or when you decide it's a good time to get married or- or maybe you don't even want to get to that point? Maybe this is as far as you'll take it. You're committed to the sex and the relationship so long as I don't have to be part of your life plan."

At that, Arthur stands likewise. "Now that's not fair to me, Merlin. This is relatively new territory for me."

Merlin clenches his fist. He hadn't realized he was so angry about this, when he'd been waiting for a fight to happen for so long. 

"You could have been upfront about the fact that she didn't know, so I would have had time to process that I'm your secret boyfriend."

"You're not my secret boyfriend. Just my regular boyfriend."

"Are you sure about that?" Merlin snaps. He collects his things hastily and moves towards the front door. "I'm going home. Thanks for dinner."

Arthur does open his mouth to speak, but the door slams after Merlin before he can say anything. The first instinct is to follow Merlin out, but he knows that Merlin's anger is justified and he has every right to react like this. Not telling Morgana about him was a deliberate, selfish move. Merlin's not what his family expects him to have in his life, no matter how he feels about him, and maybe it's time to analyze what it means. Not for him, of course, but for Merlin. Arthur's certain of the fact that he wants Merlin in his life and equally certain that he's made a massive mistake.


	2. Chapter 2

The one thing Merlin's most grateful is that he's not old enough yet to be too mature to have a proper sulk. Arthur texts him a few hours later to make sure he'd gotten home safe, and he lets the message switch over to "seen" without answering it at all. That should be answer enough for the giant prat, he thinks. (Really he needs some better bad words to use against him.)

When he wakes up the next morning, there's no other texts and he's both relieved and disappointed at that. He's an adult and he shouldn't expect Arthur to come rushing after him when he's upset, after all. Arthur's probably just being respectful of his feelings. That night he goes for drinks with Lance, who's having his own relationship woes, and then sit and talk about their feelings and how complicated things can be.

Sitting close to Lance, Merlin realizes he's a very good looking man. He wonders what it'd be like to be with someone like him. Lance wouldn't keep him a secret, or lie to him about something like that. Lance would probably chase after him in a dramatic fight and his hair would look really good as he did it, just to really get his point across. If he was dating Lance, they'd have made up that very same night and had a shag because Lance is not equally as stubborn as Merlin is. He wonders briefly if he could kiss Lance, just sitting there on the bar stool. The thought turns his stomach and he thinks of the consequence of hurting Arthur, of never getting to kiss him again and he wishes he was sober and didn't have thoughts like this at all.

 

Arthur sends a text that just reads "I'm sorry" late that night. Merlin wonders if Arthur's having trouble sleeping or if it's just him. He leaves it as read in his inbox.

 

Merlin hasn't been working Saturday shifts lately because of his relationship, but he offers to cover for a colleague who has to attend a wedding that week. The gallery's slow enough that day that he spends some time sketching at the desk. His boss really doesn't mind when he does things like this, claiming it adds artistic credibility to have artists working for him.

He doesn't notice someone approaching him, until he feels the figure looming over his shoulder.

"Of course you're an artist yourself," Morgana says. "And a natural talent too, by the looks of it. You talked like an artist the other day."

"How can I help you?" He asks, snapping his sketchbook shut. "I hope the painting looks well enough in your foyer."

"It does, thank you. It was just what I needed." She takes a step back. "I think we ended on the wrong foot the other day."

"You bought a painting, I helped sell it to you."

"I thought maybe you were offended that I tried to use you to get personal information about my half-brother, or that he'd slighted you in some way."

He scoffs at the thought, though Morgana's not entirely wrong. "No such thing."

"Of course, then I put the pieces together, and got the verification from Arthur himself today at lunch. You're the reason he's been suspiciously busy. Or were the reason, maybe?"

"I'm not really sure." He is, he's just worried that Arthur now isn't. "I couldn't have just told you that, it wasn't my place."

"Arthur makes some bad choices in his life, usually for the right reasons, or reasons he thinks are right. It's better that you caught him on his...lie by omission before it could ruin any chance of longterm success. It's really absurd that he thought I wouldn't be pleased that he's dating a talented young artist to begin with."

Merlin smiles at her, then pulls his sketch book back out. He shows her the more intricate details of what he's drawing. It's easy to show his art to people who understand art, it's less easy to show it to someone he wants to understand him, but he's done that already. It wasn't so long ago that he let Arthur in and he's not keen on letting go of that any time soon. He knows he can't be angry forever, and he starts to let it go.

 

The next day, they'd already arranged to meet for brunch at a place Merlin's heard about. Merlin arrives a few minutes late and he's worried Arthur's already left, or he didn't show up to begin with. It wouldn't really be Arthur's fault if he'd left already, though, given Merlin's refusal to reply to his texts.

At the front of the restaurant, Merlin peers out into the seating area, sweeping the room. He almost misses the back of the blond head in the back. After a steeling breath, he strides to the back of the restaurant, sliding into the seat opposite Arthur.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he says, sliding his hand onto the table to offer it to Arthur. It's taken only a moment later. "And I'm sorry I haven't texted you back I just-"

"I get it, you were justifiably angry."

"Still it wasn't a good move."

"I knew you weren't dead, that was the important thing." Arthur offers a teasing smile. Merlin's stomach flops a bit despite himself."It wasn't like I wanted to have a whole relationship under their radar. My family can just...be a lot. And the pressure of that can easily do a lot of damage to a relationship, so I wanted to give us some time before then. And yeah, it was a commitment thing, an even further commitment thing. Because I don't want to subject you to the awful meetings with my father until I'm sure it's a risk you're willing to take."

"But you don't get to make that call for me. I'm here to deal with your father and your very lovely half-sister."

Arthur snorts, a bit too loudly at that. "Very lovely? Hardly. I know now that- if I was going to not tell them, I at least should have told you, and my reasons for doing it."

"I shouldn't have cut you off from contact once I'd cooled down. That was immature of me."

"A bit," Arthur concedes. "But I still like you despite that one immature thing."

"Do I need to make a list of the immature things you do?"

"I'm a paragon of maturity, Merlin. A paragon." Arthur grins. "Shall we order something to eat?"

"You're paying."

"I'm paying and we're ordering dessert, trust me, I know."

 

They go to Arthur's flat after brunch. Very little time is lost before they're kissing on the couch, exploring each other with hands and mouths as though they haven't touched each other before. It's early enough into the relationship that they have rarely gone more than a few days without seeing each other, without touching each other. They both know that a time will come when they'll go this long, or longer, time and time again, and are fond of each other enough to be content. For now, though, they're both young and new to each other.

The whole ordeal on the couch would be considered romantic until Arthur lets Merlin know in clear terms what he'd like to do to him (using a very particular four letter word.) Merlin agrees that he would very much like much the same and they move to the bedroom. It's a giggling, almost awkward affair, but it's filled with joy and affection.  
Once they're settled in bed, blankets twisted about and a pillow thrown haphazardly into Arthur's face, they both strip down the rest of the way. After some more kissing and some preparation, Arthur settles himself between Merlin's thighs and thrusts inside of him. With his legs wrapped around his waist, Merlin keeps him close, whispering encouraging and gentle and lovely words to him.

In the sweaty, awkward, tangled aftermath, they still kiss and laugh and touch. Merlin's far too sated and content to think of having sex again until after a long nap, but it's still nice to have this intimacy with someone. He'd craved this in the past week without really realizing how much.

"You look like a man who's already half asleep," Arthur says at length. He's long since learned of Merlin's fondness for sleeping and napping.

"I'm definitely at least halfway there," he answers. "It can't be helped. You know me and you know I'm like this."

"I even like you for it," Arthur teases. He untangles the blankets only enough to pull them up and over their bodies.

"Oh, you like me? I'm very glad to hear that."

"Maybe more than like you."

"Maybe?"

Arthur moves onto his side, just enough that he can look down at Merlin. "I love you, for what it's worth. And if it's cliché to say it now...so be it."

Merlin surges up, pushing Arthur down onto the bed as he straddles him. He takes his face in his hand and kisses him earnestly. "I love you too."

He continues to kiss him as Arthur places his hands on his hips, holding him steady. Only when he's done with the kissing properly does he move off of him, snuggling in close to Arthur. They'll have time for more (of everything) after his nap.


End file.
